The March to the Front by Odysseas Elytis

The Axion Esti (Worthy Be) published in 1959, after a long silence, is one of Nobel Laureate Odysseas Elytis greatest works. It was set to music by Mikis Theodorakis in 1964 and became so popular that every Greek can sing some of its words. You can listen and download some of the music from the panel in the right margin. I'll post at least two or three more excerpts in the coming weeks.

Download 2-03 Η Πορεία Προς Το Μέτωπο 1

Translated by Jeffrey Carson and Nikos Sarris from the Collected Poems of Odysseas Elytis, revised and expanded edition

At dawn on St John's Day, the day after Epiphany, we received the order to move up to the places where there were no weekdays or Sundays.  We had to take over the lines, held until then by the men from Arta, which extended from Heimarra to Tepeleni, because they had been fighting without a break right from the start and only half of them were left and they couldn't bear any more.

We had already spent twelves days in the villages behind the lines. And as ours ears again became accustomed to the sweet rustlings of the earth, and timidly we gave ear to the barking of the dogs, or to the sound of distant church bells, it was then we had to return to the only din we knew: slow and heavy from the cannons, dry and quick from the machineguns.

Night after night, we marched without stopping, one behind the other, as if blind.  Slogging through the mud with great effort, we sank up to the knee.  Because it often drizzled on the roads as in our souls.  And the few times we stopped to rest, we wouldn't exchange a word, but grim and silent, with a little torch for light, we shared our raisins one by one.  At our times, if we had the chance, we hurriedly loosened our clothes and furiously scratched ourselves until we bled. Because the  lice had come up as far as our necks, which was even more unbearable than our exhaustion. And then the whistle is heard through the darkness, signaling us to start again, and like pack animals we advanced as far as we could before daybreak, when we would be targets for airplanes.  Because God had no idea about such things as targets, and as was his wont, he always made daybreak at the same hour.

Then hidden in gullies, we rested our heads on their heavy side, whence no dreams emerge. And the birds  got angry at us, thinking we paid no attention to their words--or because we had perhaps made creation ugly for no reason.  We were peasants of another kind, with spades and tools of another kind in our hands, damn them.

Twelve days ago, while at the villages behind the lines, we had looked in the mirror for many hours at the contours of our faces. And as our eyes again became accustomed to their old familiar features, and we timidly gave eye to our naked lip or our cheeks freshened by sleep, so we saw that on the second night we had changed somewhat, on the third night more so, and on the fourth and last, it was obvious we were no longer the same. It was as if, you might think, we were a motley crowd with all generations and years mixed together, some from present times and some from times long past, whitened with an abundance of beard. Unsmiling chieftains with turbans, and gigantic priests, sergeants from the wars of 1897 and 1912, ax men swinging their axes over their shoulders, Byzantine border guards, and shield bearers with the blood of Bulgarians and Turks still on them.  All together, not speaking, grunting side by side for innumerable years, we crossed ridges and ravines, thinking of nothing else. Because as when continual setbacks strike the same people so  they become used to Evil and finally change its name to destiny or fate. 

And we realized that we were very near the places where there are no weekdays or Sundays, neither sick nor hale, neither poor nor rich.  Because the distant explosions, like a thunderstorm behind the mountains, kept getting louder, so much so that we could finally make them, slow and heavy from the cannons and quick from the machineguns.  And because more and more frequently, we came across medics with the wounded, moving slowly from the front. Wearing armbands with red crosses, they set down their stretchers and spat on their palms, their eyes wild for a cigarette.

And when they heard where we were heading they shook their heads, and began to tell horrible stories.  But the only thing we paid attention to were those voices in the darkness, rising still burning from the pitch of the pit and from the sulfur. "Oh Mother, Oh, Mother."  And sometimes less often, we heard the choking gurgles, like snoring, which those in the know said  was the death rattle itself.  Sometimes the medics brought prisoners with them, captured only a few  hours before during the sudden  attack by the

patrols.  Their breath smelled of wine and their pockets bulged with food tins and chocolate.  We didn't have such things, because the bridges behind us were down, and our few mules were incapacitated by snow and slippery mud.

Finally, rising smoke appeared here and there, and the first bright flares on the horizon.

 

Comments

[john akritas]

A great poem by a great poet. Reading the extract and looking at the pictures did make me think, however, whatever happened to the spirit that produced these heroes, the spirit that existed in the Greek village and the Greek island. It's died, I suppose. Athens destroyed it all, insisting that the villages and islands were backward and needed to 'modernise'. A pity. Not that I'm trying to make out the city hasn't got me too. I caught a little mouse in a trap tonight and disposing of it nearly made me sick. I wouldn't have survived five minutes in the conditions Elytis describes.

Your earlier post on Elytis

http://greekodyssey.typepad.com/my_greek_odyssey/2008/01/elytis-did-not.html

in which he explains his poetics and the significance of the Greek light is well worth reading again, particularly for those of us who have the misfortune to live in dreadful northern European climes (London, in my case), where 'summers' consist of rain, cold and grey skies.

[Stavros]

Perhaps heroes are sometimes produced by events that swirl around them rather than the places they emanate from.

It's hard to say how any of us will perform under such conditions until we find ourselves confronted by them.

I personally think Elytis was one of the great poets of the 20th century.